Classic toy for budding engineers / FRI 1-23-26 / A little possessive, perhaps? / Commercial preceder of Geo / Micromobility option / How to look at your hot fudge sundae / Text insert for a flash-forward film scene / ___ Mountain (ski area in Killington, Vt.) / Like kyawthuite among gems / It is "Making the complicated simple, awesomely simple," per Charles Mingus

Constructor: Joyce Keller

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Micromobility (35A: Micromobility option => E-SCOOTER) —

The term micromobility refers to a category of small, lightweight vehicles designed for short-distance travel in urban areas and operated by their users. Micromobility encompasses a wide range of transport options, including bicycles, velomobiles, e-bikes, cargo bikes, electric scooters, electric skateboards, shared bicycle fleets, and electric pedal-assisted (pedelec) bicycles. Motorized micromobility vehicles are also known as personal transporters.

Initial definitions set the primary condition for inclusion in the category of micromobility to be a gross vehicle weight of less than 500 kilograms (1,100 lb). However, according to a standard of the SAE International in 2018 the definition has evolved to exclude devices with internal combustion engines and those with top speeds above 45 kilometres per hour (28 mph).

The term micromobility was allegedly coined by Horace Dediu in 2017. However, references to the term on the internet can be found as early as 2010. (wikipedia)

• • •

This one went from high to low real fast. I feel like, if you've been reading me for any length of time, you will know exactly what "high" and even more exactly "low" I'm talking about. I hammered in a few of the short answers in the NW and then looked at the letter combos on the long Acrosses (incl. "LESB-") and knew I had LESBIAN on my hands. "What are they gonna do with the LESBIAN today?" I wondered. What they did was take her to the bar (yay!) by way of a really inventive and clever clue (17A: She's out there!). The "!" tells you that the clue is meant to be taken extremely, even absurdly literally—literally in a way that changes the apparent surface meaning. We often get "!" at the ends of clues containing "it" ([Step on it!] for STAIR, [Beat it!] for DRUM, etc.), but today the mystery word isn't "it" but "there"—is she "out there" because she's wacky, because she's on the loose, because she's literally in your backyard? No. She's "out (as in openly gay) there." She's out where? She's out at the LESBIAN BAR. I like when U.S. crosswords incorporate little cryptic cluing elements like this. I don't think much of "OH, PUH-LEASE" (seen it before, in various spellings, with and without the "OH," kind of a yawner), but LESBIAN BAR was great, both as an answer and as a clue. 

["Enjoy your death trap, ladies!"]

But then ... then ... [sigh] then I saw I was dealing with a Down answer that started "ASAT-." Nothing starts "ASAT-." Nothing good anyway. There was no way that this was going to be anything but an "AS A ___" answer, and "AS A" answers, as a rule, are awful. Contrived. Grimace-causing. AS A RULE may be the only one I can actually tolerate. Everything else just feels like you grabbed a random snatch of conversation out of the ether and threw it down in the grid. AS A TREAT is no exception. And the clue ... 8D: How to look at your hot fudge sundae... ugh. How else are you going to look at it? AS A PUNISHMENT? How to look at my hot fudge sundae? HUNGRILY? LUSTFULLY? I did not know there were prescribed ways to look at a hot fudge sundae. The clue wording is just bizarre. Why not just use a clue like [For fun]? Won't make AS A TREAT any better as an answer, but at least you don't call attention to it with the bizarre premise of someone making googly-eyes at ice cream. I might EAT A SANDWICH AS A TREAT, but I would never put any combination of those words in my grid.

["You're thinking up your white lies / You're putting on your BEDROOM EYES"]

Things got better again, though. Real nice descent on the west side, from "THIS ONE'S ON ME" (5D: "I'll take the blame") to (later in the evening, perhaps) BEDROOM EYES (22D: Longing look). The other marquee answers aren't terribly exciting, but they're solid, and the grid stays mostly clean. *Mostly*—TGI is an abomination on its own and I can't believe it's still allowed in the grid. Just because one restaurant saw fit to turn the "F" in TGIF into a full word and thus separate it from the "TGI" doesn't mean any of us should ever accept "TGI" as a standalone thing. I demand that you delete "TGI" from your wordlists immediately, until such time as it becomes a common texting initialism ("too gross, ick!"? "that's [a] good idea!"?) or a mononymous singer's name ("it's pronounced 'Tiggy!'"). I don't much care for YER, either, but at least that's got kind of a cute clue (9D: A little possessive, perhaps?).

No real difficulty today, though. I don't need Fridays to be grueling, but a little more resistance, esp. if it comes in the form of clever clues, would be nice. The only real trouble spots for me today were BEENE (specifically that second "E," which I always think is going to be an "A") (25A: Designer Geoffrey), the first two letters of STARE (I thought it might be GLARE) (27D: Long look), and PICO Mountain, which I've simply never heard of (16A: ___ Mountain (ski area in Killington, Vt.)).

Bullets:

• 23A: Like kyawthuite among gems (RAREST) — probably should've made "kyawthuite" my Word of the Day today, but since I'm unlikely to see it again for the rest of my life (just as I avoided seeing it for the entirety of my life before today), I decided to go with a more everyday term—or, rather, a term that describes a more everyday phenomenon ("micromobility"). Weird obsession with minerals in today's puzzle—this answer came just a few clues before another comparative mineralogical clue: 28A: Like quartzite vis-à-vis quartz (HARDER).
• 49A: It is "Making the complicated simple, awesomely simple," per Charles Mingus (CREATIVITY) — not normally a fan of these quotation clues, and honestly I didn't even see this clue when I was solving (I could just tell the answer was CREATIVITY and filled it in). But as crossword clue quotes go, I like this one, mainly because it comes from a jazz great and sounds like something a human being would actually say. I like the colloquial addition of "awesomely simple." I can actually hear a voice there.

• 52A: Text insert for a flash-forward film scene (YEARS LATER...) — a nice, specific, vivid way of handling this phrase. I wish I could find a specific instance of this "text insert" actually being used in a film (or a tv show), but I'm having trouble getting the movie 28 Years Later out of my search results.

• 50D: Late actor Kilmer (VAL) — this clue bums me out. Kilmer played so many memorable roles, but all this clue tells you about him is that he's dead. Top Gun! Heat! My favorite VAL Kilmer movie is always going to be Real Genius, both because I watched it over and over as a kid, and because it was filmed almost entirely on the campus of Pomona College, where I ended up going to school (just two years after the movie came out). Real Genius—the first movie to end with the Tears for Fears song "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" (Marty Supreme might've done it better, but Real Genius did it first). 

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Cognac label letters / THU 1-22-26 / Sporting flats, say / Pestering type / Mark’s successor / Kick butt, so to speak / Channel with the longtime slogan “We Know Drama” / Goddess depicted with cow’s horns / Prefix meaning “heavens,” as the name of a planet suggests / Band with the 2008 platinum single “Electric Feel” / Result of missing the boat / Tools requiring two people

Constructor: Joe DiPietro

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: TRAFFIC / SIGNALS (11D: With 42-Down, they tell you when to stop and go … as seen in this puzzle’s theme)— the letters “STOP” and “GO” are replaced in the theme answers with “RED” and “GREEN,” respectively:

Theme answers:

• COMEREDASS (“Comes to pass”) (18A: Happens)
• WORKINGREENNIT (“Working on it”) (27A: Tackling the task at hand)
• LOREDPORTUNITY (“Lost opportunity”) (45A: Result of missing the boat)
• XINGREENUT (“Xing out”) (56A: Striking through)

Word of the Day: MGMT (34A: Band with the 2008 platinum single “Electric Feel”) —

MGMT (/ɛm-dʒi-ɛm-tiː/) is an American rock band formed in 2002 in Middletown, Connecticut. It was founded as "The Management" by singers and multi-instrumentalists Andrew VanWyngarden and Benjamin Goldwasser. They later changed their name to "MGMT" in 2005. […] 

On October 5, 2007, Spin named MGMT "Artist of the Day". In November Rolling Stonepegged MGMT as a top ten "Artist to Watch" in 2008 and went on to name Oracular Spectacular number 494 in their top 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list. The band placed ninth in the BBC's Sound of 2008 Top Ten Poll. They were also named as Last.fm's most played new artist of 2008 in their Best of 2008 list. At the 51st Grammy Awards, the Justice remix of "Electric Feel" won the Grammy Award for Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical. The group was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best New Artist and "Kids" was nominated for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals at the 52nd Grammy Awards. (Wikipedia)

• • •

Dear readers, my internet service provider is doing some kind of repairs or upgrade so service is out and I’m currently writing this on my phone (torture)… Oh look I can just do voice memo. Kuhl Kuhl, why is it writing out the name Kuhl and not the word Kuhl what a weird Choice. Anyway, I’ll write more later assuming my service comes back on. For now, I’ll just say that I did not care for this puzzle. At all. There’s gibberish in the grid, the theme answers themselves aren’t that interesting, and the fill is creaky throughout. And how many UPs are there in this grid anyway? Four? At least four. That’s an insane number of UPs. An illegal number I’d say. I knew the fill was gonna be a problem at STETTED (which is what happens when you turn the proofreading comment STET (i.e. “leave in”) into a past-tense verb, oof). TSK TSK. Also balked at VSOP VOCE, although now I think it sounds like a cool rapper’s name—he could open for A$AP ROCKY. 

[warning: profanity, weirdness]

More later, maybe. Or not, if the internet doesn’t cooperate. For now, I’m done writing on my phone. Sorry for the technical difficulties. Fire away in the comments if you like. See you later.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. well it's patchy, and currently slow as hell, but Internet appears to be back chez me. As some have noted, if I'd been thinking more clearly at Very Dark O'Clock in the Morning, I could've set up a hot spot with my phone and connected my laptop to the Internet that way. Ah well.  Here are some of things I might've commented on had I been more alert and competent in the face of an Internet Emergency:

• NAH is not a "Hard pass" (30D: "Hard pass"). It's a casual, slangy, not particularly emphatic "no." "HELL NO" is a "hard pass." 
• The clue on ETCH was head-shakingly weird (35A: Cut (in)). "ETCH in"??? What is that? "Cut in" and "ETCH in" are parallel phrases only if a lawyer gets involved. I guess the phrase "etched in stone" means "cut in(to) stone," but yeesh. "Cut in" is a dance term (as in "May I ___?")
• GET UP STEAM? You can work up a head of steam. You can get up to speed. But this? Unless you know a guy named Steam who has fallen, I can't see how this phrase is useful.
• I guess the SHOD clue is technically correct (6D: Sporting flats, say), but SHOD makes whoever is wearing the flats sound like a horse.
• URANO? Whoever you are, U R in NO position to be putting this in a puzzle. "Prefix" where/when? Unless you are a 17th-century star atlas enthusiast, I challege.
• And yes, as many of you have noted: COME RED ASS is hard to unsee. Lots going on there. Might be the highlight of the puzzle (put "high" in scare quotes, if you like).

I'll see you all tomorrow.

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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• American Crossword Puzzle Tournament (Stamford, CT, Apr. 10-12, 2026) (registration closed!)

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• Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)

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